SOUTH Korea's Hanjin Shipping is adding two more loops to its current US west coast services with one connecting the Middle East and South Asia and the other with Japan.

This involves the introduction of the PSG (Pacific South & Gulf) service that connects the Middle East, Asia and the US west coast starting in April with the deployment of eleven 6,500-TEU class ships by Hanjin and NYK.

The PSG will offer a rapid transit of 19 days from Singapore to LA, 17 days from Laem Chabang to Los Angeles and 13 days from Shenzhen-Yantian to the US west coast. Its inaugural sailing from Singapore will be April 27 and westbound from Busan on May 8.

The port rotation of PSG will be Jebel Ali, Damman, Port Kelang, Singapore, Laem Chabang, Shenzhen-Yantian, Los Angeles, Oakland, Busan, Shanghai, Ningbo, Shenzhen-Yantian, Singapore, Colombo and back to Jebel Ali.

Hanjin will launch its first service between Japan and the US west coast called the JPX (Japan & Pacific South Express) service from May 10 from Kobe, deploying five ships in the 3,400 TEU class through vessel-sharing agreements with carriers with NYK, OOCL and Hapag-Lloyd.

The port rotation of JPX will be Kobe, Nagoya, Tokyo, Sendai, Long Beach, Tokyo, Nagoya and Kobe.

This lane will be using Hanjin Shipping's TTI Terminal in Long Beach and Oakland, which will increase speed of cargo handling.